Rating: 
Summary: A half hearted Slayer adventure
Review: "Book of Fours" deals with a subject strangly not brought up often in the Buffy universe; past Slayers. India Cohen in particulor, Buffy's immediate predecessor. Along the way she also meets up with Kendra's spirit, who was killed by Drucilla; Faith, a deeply troubled Slayer from Boston; and Lucy Hanover, a Civil War era Slayer. They are called together to battle the Gatherer, a incoporeal spirit that requires Slayers' souls to become powerful. It is helped along the way by Ceilie, a voodoo queen who has been helping the Gatherer for centeries. I really liked the book with all the action, and it was a pretty fast read. But I also thought a lot was missing. I really think that it is a missed opertunity to learn more about the former Slayers, it really didn't fill in enough blanks to satisfy me. Also the end was really confusing, where Giles and another former Watcher stop magick rites in the middle to start a new one on the fly, this is done a couple of times, and it was hard to figure out what he was doing. Also the part where all the spirits of the past and present Slayers became one body (Buffy's, obviously) to fight the evil. And ther end solution was a bit simple for me. I also thought they left Angel, Willow, and Oz out of too much of the action, especially Willow considering what happened to her at the beginning. It was also a shame that more wasn't done about the plot to raise the Master. But it is still OK, just not the best.
Rating:
Summary: A half hearted Slayer adventure
Review: "Book of Fours" deals with a subject strangly not brought up often in the Buffy universe; past Slayers. India Cohen in particulor, Buffy's immediate predecessor. Along the way she also meets up with Kendra's spirit, who was killed by Drucilla; Faith, a deeply troubled Slayer from Boston; and Lucy Hanover, a Civil War era Slayer. They are called together to battle the Gatherer, a incoporeal spirit that requires Slayers' souls to become powerful. It is helped along the way by Ceilie, a voodoo queen who has been helping the Gatherer for centeries. I really liked the book with all the action, and it was a pretty fast read. But I also thought a lot was missing. I really think that it is a missed opertunity to learn more about the former Slayers, it really didn't fill in enough blanks to satisfy me. Also the end was really confusing, where Giles and another former Watcher stop magick rites in the middle to start a new one on the fly, this is done a couple of times, and it was hard to figure out what he was doing. Also the part where all the spirits of the past and present Slayers became one body (Buffy's, obviously) to fight the evil. And ther end solution was a bit simple for me. I also thought they left Angel, Willow, and Oz out of too much of the action, especially Willow considering what happened to her at the beginning. It was also a shame that more wasn't done about the plot to raise the Master. But it is still OK, just not the best.
Rating: 
Summary: The Four Join... (Obviously)
Review: I found this book a fairly enjoyable read. Not enough to knock my out of my seat and exclaim: "Oh my GOD!" but good enough. The plot was different (slightly) and I enjoyed watching the main characters interact. Main complaints are the storyline jumping from past to present without warning. The ending was a bit...confusing in ways and didn't really leave me as satisfied as I expected. Not all questions that arise during the book are answered, leaving you bewildered about why not. My opinion: If you feel like a book to pass (alot of) time, this is the one.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrible
Review: I have read almost all the BtVS books in the series and this one is by far the most dull and uninspiring one I have ever had to sit through. I am only half way thru and there are so many charcaters to keep track of it's almost impossible.
A ex Jamacian Watcher's insane wannabe lover who turns zombie/ancient dark goddess. Some pool in the middle of nowhere who spits out weapons, Xanders nephew etc etc. And Willow did not lose all her hair. How did it grow back so quikly then?
This book is confusing and boring and doesn't hold true to the characters on the show.
Too many unknown characters and not enough Buffy characters.
Rating: 
Summary: Liked it very much!
Review: Many of the reviews that have been put up have upset me, The Book of Fours, By: Nancy Holder I personally thought was a wonderful book. I have been told by far to many people that you if you haven't read the Gatekeeper Trilogy and Pretty Maids All in a Row, you will be lost, but I don't think this statement is right, I haven't read any of those books and I understood all of it. Its just in the beginning that you understand very little but if you just stick with the book and keep reading it turns out to be wonderful. By the time I had bought the book so many people had told me it was not very good and I was not going to read it but in the end I read it anyway and I am thankful for that. The only thing I found remotely boring about the book was all the looks into the past I found those so boring that I wanted to skip them but I didn't, and they weren't really that bad after all. I think this book has everything a reader is looking for a lot of action a little bit of romance a little humor (I loved the part about the surf board it cracked me up) and the best thing of all, something about the book that just makes you keep reading and reading! I especially enjoyed the parts about Kit and India (mostly the parts in her diary). The 1 piece of advice I have for you is that do not let the first prologue totally confuse you, that is the part I think Ms. Holder should not have put in the first prologue because you can make absolutely no understanding of it till the end. (don't let it frustrate you as it did me). All in all, I think all the Buffy fans should read this book! I know they would love it!
Rating:
Summary: what we've come to expect from nancy holder
Review: Nancy Holder is a terrible writer, and this book is a crashing bore.
Her plots are always incredibly overwrought, and never get off the ground. She includes a lot of flashbacks, new characters and sterile additions to the Slayer mythos. But she doesn't realize that the show works by using all the fantasy and horror junk as a metaphor for the human experiences Buffy and her friends go through. I doubt anybody watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer just for the monsters. They watch it because of the characters. Without good characters the monster stuff wouldn't work.
Much like bad fan fiction, Nancy Holder takes fleshed out characters and manages to flatten them into two dimensional parodies of the characters in the show. And occasionally the characters are only recognizable by name. There's a hospital scene in this book that drips with melodrama and sap. She specializes in the kind of cheesiness that made 90210 so embarrassing to watch. Buffy was refreshing because it could take similar situations and handle them with irony and humor. Nancy either doesn't understand that, or is incapable of conveying it on the page.
Which would be excusable if she had any talent as a storyteller. It's as though she's so anxious to use the Buffy characters she has on loan, that she never stops to think what she's going to write about. And the end result is a boring, near unreadable mess with a few familiar names and locations tossed in. No flow, no suspense, no concern about the outcome. And are fight scenes supposed to be fun to read? Without the visuals, they're just a list of martial arts moves. So it's probably not in this books favor that there's another mindless fight every five pages.
This shouldn't matter, but there's a really annoying photo of her on the back flap of the hard cover edition. It's not that she's remarkably bad looking or anything. It just makes you wonder what her problem is. If there was anything redeeming about this book (there isn't) the photo would cancel it out.
I notice the About the Author section doesn't mention her husband like the earlier books did. He probably left her, and I can imagine why.
Rating:
Summary: Jhaeman's Reviews
Review: THE BOOK OF FOURS
By Nancy Holder (2001)
RATING: 5/5 Stakes
SETTING: Season Three
CAST APPEARANCES: Buffy, Angel, Giles, Willow, Xander, Faith, Cordelia, Oz, Joyce, Kendra, Roger (Sam) Zabuto, Principal Snyder, Willy the Snitch, Sheila Rosenberg
MAJOR ORIGINAL CHARACTERS: India Cohen (Slayer); Kit Bothwell (India's Watcher); Lucy Hanover (ghostly Slayer); Simon LaFitte (voodoo king); Cecile LaFitte (voodoo practitioner); Mirielle (insane girlfriend of Zabuto); Anthony Yorke (traitorous Watcher); Micaela Tomassi (sorceror); Cameron Duvalier (evil servant); Tervokian (demon); Cordelia's Mother; Willow's Father; Xander's Aunt & Uncle; Kevin Harris (Xander's cousin); Carlos New Mexico (crazy homeless man); Mark Corvalis (firefighter); Monica Hamilton (nurse); Holly Johnson (rescued girl); Amanda & Ben Johnson (Holly's parents); Neema Mfune-Hayes (Watcher); Ibn Rashad; Taran; The Gatherer (ancient demon); The Wanderers (Gatherer's four servants)
BACK-OF-THE-BOOK SUMMARY: "From a place of nightmares--which Buffy and Faith share--a terrible evil invades Sunnydale, setting off disaster. Clearly, the big evil is linked to the Slayer's nightmares, which revolve around four figures: one burning, one dripping wet, one covered in mud, one shrouded in windswept linen. Each carries a box of grafted skin and bone. Giles learns that the last Slayer to encounter a similar container was India Cohen--Buffy's immediate predecessor. Strangely, Buffy has never given much thought to the young girl whose death activated her own Slayerdom, but now she must draw on the strength of those who came before her. For Buffy is being stalked by a monstrous force that journeys through time, fortifying itself by draining the primal power of a Slayer. Buffy must orien herself on a continuum against evil that predates even humanity itself. . . ."
REVIEW
The Book of Fours is an impressive accomplishment, and it's obvious why Pocket Books gave it the prestige of a hardcover launch. Spanning several countries, centuries, and even dimensions, The Book of Fours is the most complex Buffy novel I've read to date--indeed, it's one of the few that begs for a second read to take everything in. To put it another way: the novel opens with the apocalypse, and then things really get rolling . . .
The plot of The Book of Fours involves an ancient demon/god called The Gatherer, and his hunger for power that comes from the blood of Slayers. Served by humans, demons, and special beings called The Wanderers, The Gatherer remains a largely unseen character in the novel--most of the dirty work is done by his followers. Without going into excessive detail, suffice it to say that the threat he presents to Sunnydale can only be overcome if four Slayers are present to stop him--unfortunately, only two are alive (Buffy and Faith), and that's one more than normal. The solution? A trip to the Ghostlands, one of the resting places of the dead, to find the spirits of Kendra and India Cohen (Buffy's predecessor as Slayer) and ask them to temporarily take over the bodies of human hosts in order to the fight the Gatherer and his minions.
The novel does an amazing job of fleshing out India, Kendra, and their Watchers (Kit Bothwell and Sam Zabuto, respectively). Characterization of the main Scooby Gang members is right on target, and Holder does an especially good job of showing the characters interacting with each other in ways different than the standard Bronze scenes of many Buffy novels. Two things require special praise: the depiction of Faith, who can easily become either a caricature or a character without an edge; and a scene where Willow is in a car accident--even though I knew she couldn't really "die", it still had me turning the pages compulsively with my heart racing to see what would happen next.
Interestingly enough, The Book of Fours is the first Buffy novel I've seen to incorporate original settings and characters from other Buffy novels--for example, there are references to the events of Spike & Dru: Pretty Maids All in a Row and to the Gatekeeper Trilogy. If there are any downsides to the novel it's probably that simply too much stuff is thrown in--it's hard to keep track of all of the different characters, and some of the minor subplots (like Xander's cousin becoming ill) should probably have been trimmed. Quibbles aside, however, The Book of Fours is one of the best Buffy novels I've ever read and is highly recommended.
Jhaeman's Buffy Reviews: http://www.geocities.com/jhaeman
(c) 2004, Jeremy Patrick-Justice
Rating:
Summary: It's Elemental
Review: The Book of Fours takes place in season three of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - meaning Faith is 5x5, Buffy is still seeing Angel, and the teenage Slayerettes are in their senior year of high school. Buffy and Faith begin to have shared nightmares, and four elemental disasters - earth, air, water, fire - sweep Sunnydale. The villain of the piece is seeking out Slayers that
represent each element, with Faith of fire, Buffy of air, India (the Slayer whose death triggered Buffy's calling) of water and Kendra of earth. With India and Kendra both having passed on years earlier, the Ghost Roads come into place as the town erupts in chaos. As someone who has always wanted Buffy to research her predecessor, I was very pleased with the introduction and backstory for India. It was high time for Faith to debut in the
official novels, having been a driving force in the third season, where the books were set for quite some time. Holder captures Faith's essence, yearnings and burnings to wonderfully; I adore the scene in the nightclub. The book travels through a multitude of locales and periods in time, with a little bit of something for everyone. Those who have followed the show from the start and read the official novels - especially Child of the Hunt, The Gatekeeper Trilogy, Immortal and the like - are in for a real treat as characters you know and love (or love to hate) pop up everywhere. The climax shows girl power to a tee, with Cordelia and Willow stepping up to assist Buffy and Faith. The history of the world. The headquarters of the Watchers. The essence of the Slayers. The Book of Fours concludes on a note like that of The Neverending Story - and I hope to Joss they let Holder write a sequel.
Rating: 
Summary: A confusing disappointment
Review: This book made absolutely no sense! it had about 50 subplots and even the main one wasn't to clear. But according to most people it seems the author of the book was the problem.
Gernerally, i don't notice the authors of the books when i first pick up the book, but as i was reading the reviews for this book, i noticed that Nancy Holder is the one where people always say that books are always to confusing, have too much information, or jump back and forth to many times for a person to understand.
I still do not understand what exactly happened in The Book of Fours. I know that it was meant to focus on the four slayers, two live ones and two dead ones, but all the other plots did not fit in with the story. i also thought that the ending was to hard to follow and the prolouge at the beginning made no sense in refrence to the rest of the book.
The only semi-good thing about this book was that it focused on the life on the slayer before Buffy, India. I really wanted to know who she was since they never mention her on the show. Although they did mention her and she was one of the main parts of the book, i firmly believe that this book has ruined any more furthur stories any Buffy author wants to write about India.
Rating:
Summary: Alright, But Not The Best
Review: This book was nothing like Buffy at all. The author had the characters saying and doing things they would never do, especially Faith. It's like Faith was a whole other character. If you want to read a really good buffy book Christopher Golden is a great Buffy author.
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